Wharton’s collaboration of their Executive Education and their Center for Leadership and Change Management just keeps impressing us all with their amazing nano-tools for leaders, and this month’s might be one of the best. So often we get stuck in meetings that drone on and on, with not a lot of substance produced by the end. How much would office morale improve if meetings could wrap up in 25 minutes? This is no arbitrary number. Donna McGeorge, author of The 1-Day Refund, and now The 25-Minute Meeting, outlines specific steps on both the art and science of keeping meetings to 25 minutes.
This technique will require some examining of your process, streamlining preparations, agendas, and the like, but has the potential to pay off ten-fold. For instance, when planning the meeting, think about this sentence: “At the end of this meeting, it would be great if…” That one statement can re-frame planning and help clarify purpose better than most tools currently in the leadership arsenal. Additionally, using the Scan-Focus-Act technique developed by Channon, Burns, and Nelson in 1983 will keep the time limit within the 25 minute goal.
Scan - broad strokes, purpose, why are we here, etc. gets 12 mins max;
Focus - 2 or 3 items that require attention, decision making, problem solving, etc. gets 8 mins max;
Act - next steps, action items, etc. gets 5 mins max.
Take a minute to read this brief and insightful article for a deeper dive, and see examples of how other leaders implemented these changes. Bonus - alliteration nerds will notice a precise pleasing pattern.